Title

Author

Date of Graduation

Fall 12-16-2016

Document Type

Project/Capstone

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

College/School

School of Nursing and Health Professions

Abstract

When admitting a patient from the emergency department (ED) to an inpatient unit, a handoff report is conducted. There are many ways the ED nurse can go about delivering this report to the inpatient or floor nurse. Each ED nurse tends to this task in their own way, providing the information they deem important. Due to the absence of standardization, handoff reports have the ability to lack important information regarding the patient and can even lead to compromising the safety of the patient.

The purpose of this project was to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current handover process of admitted patients from the ED to floor units. An extensive assessment was conducted including in person qualitative questionnaire interviews, as well as Likert scale satisfaction surveys. 95 responses were generated in qualitative and quantitative forms, of that 20 nurses responded to the quantitative nursing satisfaction Likert scale and 75 nurses responded to the qualitative nursing questionnaire interview.

It was found that 90% of inpatient nurses were satisfied with the report from the ED nurse. However, 22% inpatient nurses did not believe that they received enough information to provide safe care for their patient and 34.5% stated that they had been involved in an error or near miss experience related to a lack of communication from the report. Nurses were also asked to identify issues associated with handoff, 59% of inpatient nurses reported that the handoff was not given from the primary nurse, 44% of nurses stated the report was not detailed enough, and 38% of nurses believed the report lacked organization. Due to these findings, handoff can be altered to provide a more seamless transition of admitted patients. An intervention may include implementing a training session on how to successfully navigate the electronic healthcare record’s features to maximize the nurses utilization of tools and opportunities to produce an exceptional and comprehensive handoff.